Bibliomania; or Book-Madness

Transcriber's Note:

Thomas Frognall Dibdin's Bibliomania was originally published in 1809 and was re-issued in several editions, including one published by Chatto & Windus in 1876. This e-book was prepared from a reprint of the 1876 edition, published by Thoemmes Press and Kinokuniya Company Ltd. in 1997. Where the reprint was unclear, the transcriber consulted a copy of the actual 1876 edition.

Footnotes

The original contains numerous footnotes, denoted by numbers prior to Part I, and by symbols in the remainder of the book. All of the footnotes are consecutively numbered in this e-book; footnotes within footnotes are lettered.

Some of the footnotes contain lengthy book catalogues with descriptions and prices. For ease of reading, in this e-book these catalogues have been formatted as lists rather than tables.

Text that in the original was rendered in blackletter is enclosed between equal signs (=bold face=).

Spelling and typographical errors are retained as they appear in the original, with a [Transcriber's Note] containing the correct spelling. Minor obvious punctuation and font errors have been corrected without note. Inconsistent diacriticals and hyphenation have been retained as they appear in the original.

There are frequent inconsistencies in the spelling of certain proper names. These have been retained as they appear in the original, for example:

Bibliotheque/Bibliotheque Boccaccio/Bocaccio/Boccacio De Foe/Defoe Francais/Francois Lomenie/Lomenie Montfaucon/Montfaucon Roxburgh/Roxburghe Shakspeare/Shakespeare Spenser/Spencer Tewrdannckhs/Tewrdranckhs/Teurdanckhs (and other variations) Valliere/Valliere

BIBLIOMANIA.

Libri quosdam ad Scientiam, quosdam AD INSANIAM, deduxere. GEYLER: Navis Stultifera: sign. B. iiij. rev.

BIBLIOMANIA;

OR

=Book-Madness;=

A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ROMANCE.

ILLUSTRATED WITH CUTS.

BY THOMAS FROGNALL DIBDIN, D.D.

=New and improved Edition,=

TO WHICH ARE ADDED PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS, AND A SUPPLEMENT INCLUDING A KEY TO THE ASSUMED CHARACTERS IN THE DRAMA.

=London:= Chatto & Windus, Piccadilly. MDCCCLXXVI.

TO

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

THE EARL OF POWIS,

PRESIDENT OF

=The Roxburgh Club,=

THIS

NEW EDITION

OF

BIBLIOMANIA

IS

RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY

THE AUTHOR.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The public may not be altogether unprepared for the re-appearance of the BIBLIOMANIA in a more attractive garb than heretofore;--and, in consequence, more in uniformity with the previous publications of the Author.

More than thirty years have elapsed since the last edition; an edition, which has become so scarce that there seemed to be no reasonable objection why the possessors of the other works of the Author should be deprived of an opportunity of adding the present to the number: and although this re-impression may, on first glance, appear something like a violation of contract with the public, yet, when the length of time which has elapsed, and the smallness of the price of the preceding impression, be considered, there does not appear to be any very serious obstacle to the present republication; the more so, as the number of copies is limited to five hundred.

Another consideration deeply impressed itself upon the mind of the Author. The course of thirty years has necessarily brought changes and alterations amongst "men and things." The dart of death has been so busy during this period that, of the Bibliomaniacs so plentifully recorded in the previous work, scarcely three,_--including the Author--have survived. This has furnished a monitory theme for the APPENDIX; which, to the friends both of the dead and the living, cannot be perused without sympathising emotions--_

"A sigh the absent claim, the DEAD a tear."

The changes and alterations in "things,"--that is to say in the =Bibliomania= itself--have been equally capricious and unaccountable: our countrymen being, in these days, to the full as fond of novelty and variety as in those of Henry the Eighth. Dr. Board, who wrote his Introduction of Knowledge in the year 1542, and dedicated it to the Princess Mary, thus observes of our countrymen:

_I am an Englishman, and naked do I stand here, Musing in my mind what raiment I shall wear; For now I will wear_ this, and now I will wear that, Now I will wear--I cannot tell what.

This highly curious and illustrative work was reprinted, with all its wood-cut embellishments, by Mr. Upcott. A copy of the original and most scarce edition is among the Selden books in the Bodleian library, and in the Chetham Collection at Manchester. See the Typographical Antiquities, vol. iii. p. 158-60.

But I apprehend the general apathy of Bibliomaniacs to be in a great measure attributable to the vast influx of BOOKS, of every description, from the Continent--owing to the long continuance of peace; and yet, in the appearance of what are called English Rarities, the market seems to be almost as barren as ever. The wounds, inflicted in the HEBERIAN contest, have gradually healed, and are subsiding into forgetfulness; excepting where, from collateral causes, there are too many striking reasons to remember their existence.

Another motive may be humbly, yet confidently, assigned for the re-appearance of this Work. It was thought, by its late proprietor,--MR. EDWARD WALMSLEY[1]--to whose cost and liberality this edition owes its appearance--to be a volume, in itself, of pleasant and profitable perusal; composed perhaps in a quaint and original style, but in accordance with the characters of the Dramatis Personae. Be this as it may, it is a work divested of all acrimonious feeling--is applicable to all classes of society, to whom harmless enthusiasm cannot be offensive--and is based upon a foundation not likely to be speedily undermined.

T.F. DIBDIN.

May 1, 1842.

[Footnote 1: Mr. EDWARD WALMSLEY, who died in 1841, at an advanced age, had been long known to me. He had latterly extensive calico-printing works at Mitcham, and devoted much of his time to the production of beautiful patterns in that fabrication; his taste, in almost every thing which he undertook, leant towards the fine arts. His body was in the counting-house; but his spirit was abroad, in the studio of the painter or engraver. Had his natural talents, which were strong and elastic, been cultivated in early life, he would, in all probability, have attained a considerable reputation. How he loved to embellish--almost to satiety--a favourite work, may be seen by consulting a subsequent page towards the end of this volume. He planned and published the Physiognomical Portraits, a performance not divested of interest--but failing in general success, from the prints being, in many instances, a repetition of their precursors. The thought, however, was a good one; and many of the heads are powerfully executed. He took also a lively interest in Mr. Major's splendid edition of Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting in England, a work, which can never want a reader while taste has an abiding-place in one British bosom.

_Mr. Walmsley possessed a brave and generous spirit; and I scarcely knew a man more disposed to bury the remembrance of men's errors in that of their attainments and good qualities._]

THE BIBLIOMANIA;

OR

=Book-Madness;=

CONTAINING SOME ACCOUNT OF THE

HISTORY, SYMPTOMS, AND CURE OF THIS FATAL DISEASE.

IN AN EPISTLE ADDRESSED TO

RICHARD HEBER, ESQ.

BY THE

REV. THOMAS FROGNALL DIBDIN, F.S.A.

Styll am I besy bokes assemblynge, For to have plenty it is a pleasaunt thynge In my conceyt, and to have them ay in honde: But what they mene I do nat understonde.

=Pynson's Ship of Fools.= Edit. 1509.

LONDON

REPRINTED FROM THE FIRST EDITION, PUBLISHED IN 1809.

=Advertisement.=

In laying before the public the following brief and superficial account of a disease, which, till it arrested the attention of Dr. Ferriar, had entirely escaped the sagacity of all ancient and modern physicians, it has been my object to touch chiefly on its leading characteristics; and to present the reader (in the language of my old friend Francis Quarles) with an "honest pennyworth" of information, which may, in the end, either suppress or soften the ravages of so destructive a malady. I might easily have swelled the size of this treatise by the introduction of much additional, and not incurious, matter; but I thought it most prudent to wait the issue of the present "recipe," at once simple in its composition and gentle in its effects.

Some apology is due to the amiable and accomplished character to whom my epistle is addressed, as well as to the public, for the apparently confused and indigested manner in which the notes are attached to the first part of this treatise; but, unless I had thrown them to the end (a plan which modern custom does not seem to warrant), it will be obvious that a different arrangement could not have been adopted; and equally so that the perusal, first of the text, and afterwards of the notes, will be the better mode of passing judgment upon both.

T.F.D.

Kensington, June 5, 1809.

TO THE READER.

A short time after the publication of the first edition of this work, a very worthy and shrewd Bibliomaniac, accidentally meeting me, exclaimed that "the book would do, but that there was not gall enough in it." As he was himself a Book-Auction-loving Bibliomaniac, I was resolved, in a future edition, to gratify him and similar Collectors by writing PART III. of the present impression; the motto of which may probably meet their approbation.